Bert was on the folk/skiffle scene a long while before I was. I probably first met him at the old Croydon Folk Club at "The Waddon", although he was also quite a regular at Derek Sargent's club at Surbiton. I saw Bert at Walton this year and he definitely didn't look good. He's still managing to get to the pub though - so all isn't lost, but his speech is very slurred and he seems to have suffered some memory loss - completely unrelated to the pub !

I'm also concerned because Bert had quite a lot of his own, mainly humourous, songs. Does anyone know or have any recordings of these - it would be a pity if they were lost. I can remember a version of "Frankie and Johnny" where they were both gay, a rather derogatory song about the police, and an amusing trad folk song parody ("with a hey-nonny-nonny and haul away, one last chorus of titty-fal-lal, and we'll save the rest for another day").

If anyone can suggest a venue for a benefit night for Bert, I'm sure we would have no problem in finding people who would be willing to perform. Wendy has told me that she will try to contact Johnny Silvo who's coming over soon, and I'm sure that he'd come if he was free. We'd need somewhere that people could get to easily - probably Central or SE London would be best. Perhaps a folk club would be willing to re-allocate one of it's "Singers Nights".